Creep
by WandaXmaximoff
Summary: [DEATHLY HALLOWS SPOILERS] Snape and Lily one shot, regarding Snape's feeling for Lily, and his guilt for calling her a Mudblood.


**Creep**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter, or anything associated with his wonderful world, all the magic belongs to J.K Rowling. In addition, I don't own the lyrics to _Creep_ used in this story, they belong to Radiohead.

Anything you read here and recognize belongs to J.K Rowling or Radiohead, and I do not lay claim to it. I only claim what I've added to an already wonderful passages from the books, and a heart breaking song.

I don't intend to make profit from this story, and it's only value is entertainment and amusement.

**Warning: **This story contains spoilers from _Deathly Hallows_.

**Author's notes:** Since finishing _Deathly Hallows_, the idea for a Snape/Lily fic has been playing around in my head. Then I heard _Creep_ and everything seemed to fall into place. I know I have a million other things I should be doing (like working on my many chaptered stories.) However, this just wouldn't leave me alone!

Finally, Thanks to Karen for checking this through for me before I posted it! Love ya!

Therefore, enjoy...

* * *

"I'm sorry," Snape began, his black eyes unable to meet her own green ones. 

"I'm not interested," Lily stated flatly.

"I'm sorry!" he said again, becoming slightly agitated.

"Save your breath," she scowled.

It was night-time. Lily, who was wearing a dressing gown, stood with her arms folded in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower.

"I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here," she admitted.

"I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you a Mudblood, it just --" he began, but she cut him off and finished the sentence for him.

"Slipped out? There was no pity in Lily's voice. "It's too late. I've made my excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends – you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?"

He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking.

"I can't pretend any more. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine," she sighed, as though the thought had been on her mind for some time.

"No – listen, I didn't mean --" Snape began again, but once more Lily finished his sentence for him.

"-- to call me a Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be different?"

He struggled on the verge of speech, but with a contemptuous look she turned and climbed back through the portrait hole.

Snape stood in defeated silence as he watched the veil of her red hair swing behind her, and the door to Gryffindor Tower slam shut.

For ten minutes he stood alone in the dark hallway, replaying in his head her words to him.

_'You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine.'_

Maybe they had started to travel down different paths, but that didn't mean he no longer cared about her.

If only she'd listen to him; allow him to explain that what he'd said was an accident. He hadn't meant to hurt her, he'd just been so embarrassed by James' taunting. It was bad enough for the whole school to see him ridiculed like that, but for _her t_o see him so vulnerable was more than he could endure and so he'd lashed out at the person closest to him.

Slowly, Snape began to walk down the deserted corridors and made his way back to the ground floor. He's curtain of black hair becoming a wall, the shield him from the few people still roaming the hallways.

He didn't need their contemptuous look, just like he hadn't needed her pity that afternoon. He didn't want her to feel sorry for him, he just wanted her acceptance. Now, due to one stupid mistake, he might have lost that forever. He'd ruined the only friendship that had ever meant anything to him. He'd hurt the one person he truly cared for and seemed to care for him in return.

As Snape reached the Slytherin dungeons, he was relieved to find it empty. The last thing he needed now was to run into one of his 'friends' and have them commending his earlier actions.

With a heavy heart, he made his way up to his dormitory and was pleased to find the room in darkness and everyone else asleep.

He undressed and changed into his night-shirt feeling worthless and hating himself. The look in Lily's eyes when he's spat out that despicable word was etched into his brain. Never had he seen those twinkling emerald orbs so full of hurt and anguish.

Unable to sleep, Lily's words echoed in Snape's head.

_'Why should I be different?'_

_Because you are, _he thought to himself. _Because you're the most wonderful, caring, loving person I've ever met._

Snape sighed, and rolled out of bed. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep; not when her sorrowful voice filled his head. Not when there was still one small chance he could show her how truly sorry he really was.

Taking a piece of parchment, his quill and a bottle of ink, Snape made his way down to the common room.

It was deserted now and completely dark. Not even a single ember of the fire remained in the grate.

The cold emptiness of the room reflected how he felt inside. His heart ached knowing he'd hurt her so badly.

Falling into a large armchair by the fire, he lit his wand and smoothed down the parchment on the table in front of him.

He didn't know what to write, all he knew was that he had to take this once last chance to explain what had happened; to confess to her how he really felt.

Allowing the walls around his heart to fall for the first time in years, he wrote what he thought. He wrote what thinking of Lily and how he'd hurt her made him feel.

_Lily,_

_When you were here before, I saw the hurt in your face and I couldn't look you in the eye.  
You're just like an angel, and the pain in your skin makes me cry. You float to me like a feather, in this beautiful world._

He recalled the first time he'd seen her, swinging higher and higher, her red hair flying out behind her. He remembered the sound of her happy laughter as it filled the park. The laughter she gave to him, as they talked about Hogwarts, and their hopes for the future.

_I wish I was special, because you're so very special. But I'm not, I'm a creep. I'm a weirdo.  
I often wonder what the hell am I doin' here? I don't belong here._

He remembered her kind tone, when as children they'd lay on the grass talking. The concern in her sweet voice as she asked how things were for him at home._  
_

_I don't care how much their taunts hurt me. I wanna have control. I want to be like you. I want a perfect soul.  
_He recalled James and Sirius' taunts on their first day on the Hogwarts express, and how she'd jumped to his defence and suggested finding another compartment on the train.

_I want you to notice me, when I'm not around. But I don't say a word, because I want whatever makes you happy. I'll do whatever you want, I'll leave you alone, because you're so very special._

He recalled their afternoon strolls around the school grounds, and his concerns that they were drifting apart.

_'...thought we were supposed to be friends?' he'd said. 'Best friends?'_

_'We are Sev, but I don't like some of the people you're hanging around with!'_

_'James Potter fancies you! And he's not... Everyone thinks... Big Quidditch hero --'  
_

_'I know James Potter's an arrogant toerag. I don't need you to tell me that. But Mulciber and Avery's idea of humour is just evil. Evil, Sev. I don't understand how you can be friends with them!_

Sometimes, he didn't understand either. However, asides from Lily, they were the only people who understood him, and accepted him.

Maybe she was right. Maybe they were on different paths in life?

_You're so very special, and I don't belong here..._

_Severus_

Snape slipped the note into his book bag, hoping to give it to Lily in their next class.

However, the words of a remorseful heart never found their way to the intended reader. Instead, the note lay forever more forgotten in the bottom of Snape's bag.

* * *

Years later, when in the office of Albus Dumbledore, the words from his letter to Lily returned to Snape, as Dumbledore broke the tragic news.

"I thought... you were going... to keep her... safe," he stammered.

"She and James put their faith in the wrong person," said Dumbledore. "Rather like you, Severus. Weren't you hoping that Lord Voldemort would spare her?"

Snape's breathing was shallow.

"Her boy survives," said Dumbledore.

With a tiny jerk of the head, Snape seemed to flick off an irksome fly.

"Her son lives. He has her eyes, precisely her eyes. You remember the shape and colour of Lily Evans' eyes, I am sure?"

"DON'T!" bellowed Snape. "Gone...dead..."

"Is this remorse, Severus?"

"I wish... I wish _I_ were dead..."

_You're so very special and I'm a creep,I'm a weirdo. What the hell am I doin' here? I don't belong here._

He didn't hear the remainder of Dumbledore's words, as he was lost in images of Lily's beautiful eyes.

He didn't take in the promise Dumbledore was asking him to make, until slowly he regained control of himself, mastered his own breathing.

At last he said, "Very well. Very well. But never – never tell, Dumbledore. This must be between us! Swear it! I cannot bear... especially Potter's son...I want your word!"

"My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?" Dumbledore sighed, looking down into Snape's ferocious, anguished face. If you insist..."

* * *

For the next seventeen years, Lily Evans' emerald eyes taunted Snape. Every time he went to sleep, he saw them looking back at him, he saw the hurt reflected in them, saw the pain he'd caused her all those years ago. 

Daytime was no much better, as her gaze twinkled out at him from the very face of James Potter. Even though Harry had his father's arrogance, and reckless regard for the rules, Snape saw in the boy the same spirit and compassion that had always drawn him to Lily.

He wanted to hate the boy. He wanted to despise him for being so like James, for living when she hadn't. But he couldn't, he could never hate those eyes.

During every one of Harry's Potions classes, Snape had to endure looking across the room and seeing those eyes. The very same eyes that had twinkled at him across the table, as he showed her one of his new adjustments to the book's instructions or revealed to her one of the new spells he'd created.

She'd never once belittled him, or called his experiments foolish. She only encouraged his creativity and showed him unfaltering kindness. That was until that day in his fifth year, when he'd ruined it all with one stupid word.

Again, and again, he remembered Lily. Her laughter, her kindness, her love. And when he did, the words of his letter returned to him; taunting him.

_You're so very special and I'm a creep,I'm a weirdo. What the hell am I doin' here? I don't belong here._

* * *

Years later, and again in the Headmaster's office, Lily's memory returned to haunt him. Her eyes returned to remind him of the pain he'd caused her. 

"But this is touching, Severus," said Dumbledore seriously. "Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?"

"For him?" shouted Snape. "_Expecto patronum!_"

From the tip of his wand burst the sliver doe; she landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.

"After all this time?"

"Always," said Snape.

_I want whatever makes you happy. I'll do whatever you want._

Even when the whole Wizarding world thought he was a traitor and had betrayed Dumbledore. Even when Lord Voldemort though he was his most loyal servant, Snape never forgot.

He was kneeling in Sirius' old bedroom, tears were dripping from the end of his hooked nose as he read the old letter from Lily. The second page carried only a few words:

_could ever have been friends with Gellert Grindelwald. I think her mind's going, personally!_

_Lots of love,_

_Lily_

Snape took the pages bearing Lily's signature, and her love, and tucked it inside his robes. Then he ripped in two the photograph he was holding, so that he kept the part from which Lily laughed, throwing the portion showing James and Harry back on the floor, under the chest of drawers.

_You're just like an angel, and the pain in your skin makes me cry. You float to me like a feather, in this beautiful world._

* * *

As Snape drew his dying breath, and his grip on Harry's robes slackened, his memories spilled out of him and into the air.

He picture Lily; her smile, her laughter, her dark red hair and her glittering green eyes. He wanted to see those eyes one final time.

"Look... at... me..." he whispered.

As the green eyes found his black once, he saw Lily looking down at him. Finally forgiving him and extending her love to him at last.

After a second something in the depths of the dark eyes seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed, blank and empty.

_She's running out again. She's running out. She run run run run...  
run... You're so very special and I'm a creep,I'm a weirdo. What the hell am I doin' here? I don't belong here. I don't belong here..._


End file.
